HOUNSLOW
COUNCIL PROPOSES TO DIVERT EDUCATION BUDGET
FROM CENTRAL GOVERNMENT TO FUND BUDGET SHORTFALLS
IN OTHER AREAS.

The
Belmont Home School Association respond to
Hounslow Council's Education cuts

The
issues

The
government has given the Borough of Hounslow
£6.665 million to spend on education
this year, in order to pay for agreed teacher
pay rises and other initiatives. Hounslow Council
is proposing to use a minimum of £3m
of this money to make up a shortfall in other
areas of its council income this year.

The
government would not have targeted this money
towards education unless it was entirely necessary.
A recent announcement on teacher's pay specifies
that the total rise in expenditure on pay will
be 5%. This means that just 0.7% of the promised
5.7% SSA will be available to manage other
initiatives. It is clear that government has
identified the sum that school's will need
in order to maintain service at last year¹s
levels, with no growth factor. Knowing these
facts it seems incomprehensible that Hounslow
Council expects schools to manage without the
promised £6.665 million. In her press
release Estelle Morris states that 'Parents
expect this money to be used to improve standards
for their children'. Hounslow are clearly proposing
to contravene this expectation and compromise
education in the borough.

Hounslow
is also proposing to cut £990,000 from
the budget for reception age pupils from April.
This is exactly the amount that pays for nursery
nurses. Hounslow will no longer provide nursery
nurses in reception classes and will expect
one teacher to manage 30 four year olds single-handed.

These
cuts will force governors to make redundancies
in many, if not all, Infant and Primary Schools.
There will obviously be a marked effect on
education standards if one teacher is expected
to manage 30 four year olds single handed.
It will be impossible to provide an adequate
quality of instruction for this age group under
these conditions.

If
these cuts go ahead as planned by Hounslow
Council there will be a knock on effect on
teacher recruitment in the borough, as reception
teachers will not want to work under conditions
where they are not given the opportunity to
do their job effectively.

Apparently,
the Council is currently deciding how much
to cut the education budget by, NOT whether
they should make cuts. The Executive members
are considering cuts of a minimum of 2% and
maximum of 6%. The £3million mentioned
earlier assumes a cut of 2% plus changes to
payment for reception pupils. Schools have
been told that they are likely to make maximum
cuts of 6%.

The greater reaching effects of that level
of cuts in Belmont Primary School, for example,
would be as follows:

As you can see this is potentially a very serious
situation for primary school children and teachers
in the borough. We have a very short consultation
period due to end on Friday 15th February,
during which we can raise our objections to
these cuts and urge the council not to use
these central government funds for anything
other than for the purposes the Department
of Education intended.